3rd ODI: SA Women’s Team Beat India, Take 2-1 Series Lead

South Africa’s women’s team have taken a 2-1 lead in the five match series against India.

South Africa’s women’s cricket team have beaten India by 6 runs through the DLS method after rain disrupted play near the end of the South African chase.

Chasing India's 248/5, opener Loizelle Lee's unbeaten 132 off 131 balls had taken South Africa to 223/4 in 46.3 overs before the match was called off due to rain.

Lee is the first South African female cricketer to score three centuries in ODI cricket and her 132 not out is the fourth highest score in a chasing effort in the format.

The visitors were cruising towards the target when rain interrupted play during the 47th over. They needed 28 runs to win off 24 balls and were six runs ahead of the DLS par score at the time the players left the field.

Jhulan Goswami took two wickets while Rajeshwari Gayakwad and Deepti Sharma took one wicket each.

The victory gives the visitors a 2-1 lead in the five match ODI series which is being played at Lucknow's Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium. The fourth match will now be played on Sunday.

Earlier, Punam Raut's second consecutive half century helped India reach 248/5. Punam scored 77 and struck up important partnerships with captain Mithali Raj and Harmanpreet Kaur.

Captain Mithali Raj also became the first female cricketer from India to cross 10,000 runs in international cricket, during the match. Her knock of 36 runs took her career tally to 10,001 runs at an average of 46.73.

The 38-year-old has so far scored 6,974 runs in ODI cricket at an average of 50.53; 2,364 runs in T20Is at 37.52 and 663 runs in Test cricket at 51.00.

She has also scored a whopping 75 half centuries and eight centuries.

Mithali is India's all-time highest run scorer in ODIs and T20Is and the fourth highest in Tests behind Sandhya Agarwal (1,110 runs), Shanta Rangaswamy (750) and Shubhangi Kulkarni (700). Former England captain Charlotte Edwards was the only woman to have scored more than 10,000 runs in international cricket before Mithali. Edwards, 41, retired from international cricket in May 2016 and later retired from all forms of the game in September 2017. She scored 5,992 runs in 191 ODIs, 2,605 runs in 95 T20Is and 1,676 runs in 23 Tests.

(More to follow)